Alex Kirilloff went 3-for-3 with two home runs and a double and Joe Ryan scattered four hits over six shutout innings to lead the Minnesota Twins to an 11-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Saturday afternoon in Minneapolis.
Joey Gallo homered, doubled and had four RBIs; Carlos Correa went 2-for-5 with a homer and three RBIs; Ryan Jeffers had two hits and reached base four times; and Jorge Polanco also homered for Minnesota, which won for the third time in the last four games. It was the third multi-homer game of Kirilloff’s career.
Ryan (6-1) walked one and struck out 10, including the side in the sixth inning. He threw 102 pitches, 76 for strikes. It was the third 10-strikeout game of the season for Ryan, who has struck out 57 batters in 50 innings while walking only seven.
Tucker Barnhart went 2-for-3 with an RBI, and Seiya Suzuki doubled for Chicago, which had a five-game winning streak at Target Field snapped. Hayden Wesneski (2-2) suffered the loss, allowing seven runs on seven hits over five innings. He walked one and struck out five.
After Gallo, batting leadoff for the first time in his career, flew out to the warning track in right, Kirilloff lined a 382-foot home run into the bleachers in left to give the Twins a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first.
Gallo made it 4-0 in the third with a towering drive deep into the second deck in right, driving in Willi Castro, who had doubled, and Jeffers, who walked. Kirilloff followed with a 422-foot drive to center to increase the lead to 5-0.
Kirilloff added a one-out, ground-rule double down the left field line in the fifth and scored one out later on Polanco’s third homer of the season, a 409-foot drive into the right field plaza to make it 7-0.
Chicago cut it to 7-1 in the seventh on an RBI single by Barnhart, who drove in Christopher Morel, who had singled and advanced to second on a walk to Eric Hosmer.
Correa extended the lead to 8-1 in the bottom of the seventh with his sixth home run of the season, a 417-foot drive to left center.
Gallo added an RBI double and Correa had a two-run, bases-loaded single that caromed off the third base bag in the eighth to end the scoring.
–Field Level Media
